Mobile Phone Reviews

Gone are the days when OnePlus was a budget brand – but these days even its budget product line is seen as too expensive. That or it’s not competitive in the current mid-range market. Last week’s poll painted a grim picture of Nord 5’s and Nord CE5’s future.

The OnePlus Nord 5 fared pretty poorly, with a plurality of people voting against its hardware. The second largest group thought that it was too expensive. The two are related, of course, but it’s not just about the value for money equation. The Nord 4 had a unique look with that aluminum unibody – the Nord 5 looks ordinary by comparison.

The Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 chipset is pretty powerful, but you can get the newer 8s Gen 4 for less money than the Nord 5. And the 50+8MP camera was seen as nothing special. The IP65 rating and small battery on the international model were also commonly brought up as issues.

The OnePlus Nord CE5 got the clearest message we’ve seen yet – “No, I don’t like the hardware” got over 80% of the vote. It’s not even a question about it being too expensive (the price in India is too close to the Nord 5, for example), people in the comments just poked too many holes in the spec sheet.

Some felt that the Dimensity 8350 Apex chipset didn’t get enough cooling and throttling hurt its sustained performance. Others pointed to the lack of stereo speakers (the CE4 had them). Going from a 7,100mAh battery in the model for India to 5,200mAh for the global one is a major downgrade too. The microSD slot did earn the CE5 some points, though not enough.

The Nord series is in a bad spot right now as it is facing strong competition in the mid-range market. A price cut can give the OnePlus Nord 5 a boost, but that might not be enough to save the Nord CE5.